Arturas Karnisovas found himself at a crossroads in mid-February.
The Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations was watching his product run in mud, sitting 11th in the Eastern Conference, and felt like he wasn’t getting the trade offers he was looking for as the deadline came and went.
So a decision was made.
“We chose the lane which was to stay with the same group,’’ Karnisovas said last month.
On Tuesday, the costly toll was due for that decision.
Hoping to buck the odds like they did in the 2008 NBA Draft Lottery, lady luck didn’t ring twice, as the Bulls came up in the 11th spot, handing the top-four protected draft pick to Orlando for the compensation of the 2021 Nikola Vucevic trade.
Considering the Bulls don’t have a second-round pick because of the Jabari Parker deal with the Wizards in 2019, Karnisovas’ focus should now be on looking to make a deal to possibly get back into this draft or more likely start prepping for free agency.
Either way, the questions about how the Bulls roster was handled post-All Star were legitimate.
First, could Karnisovas have sold off pieces like Vucevic or DeMar DeRozan to either grab a draft asset or more importantly allowed the Bulls to sink lower in the standings and increase the odds to jump into the top four?
Easy to ask now, but according to Karnisovas, “Obviously you need to know what was available, and if there were no deals to make this team better, those are the decisions we made and stayed pat.’’
In Karnisovas’ mind it was a numbers game.
Say the decision was made to “rest’’ key starters over the final 23 regular-season games, and rather than finishing with the 11th worse record the Bulls would have gone 8-15 rather than 14-9. The chances to land No. 1 would have been 9% instead of 1.8%.
That wasn’t worth it, according to Karnisovas.
But that leaves the Bulls front office still trying to tweak the current roster, and as of now not having draft picks this summer to do so.
Considering they also don’t have a ton of cap space, it’s time to see how creative Karnisovas can get.
“I’m very hard on myself,’’ Karnisovas said of turning this roster around. “I know partnering with [coach] Billy [Donovan], we’re very hard on ourselves. We beat ourselves up after every loss, and what we can do better. I think because of the number of how many close games we lost this year it was frustrating, but I prefer this script versus last year when we were losing by huge numbers to good teams.
“The reason we tried to stay patient with this team around the trade deadline is because this team deserved a chance to figure things out. … Even though we failed at the end, it’s information for me. I’m constantly learning stuff about this group so I can make better decisions when the time comes.’’
Will that come this offseason or will Karnisovas run this core back with a few changes, and then look to overhaul it during or after the 2023-24 campaign?
Two-time All-Star Zach LaVine was very confident in what he wanted to see. With DeRozan having one more year on his contract, LaVine thinks the duo still hasn’t hit its ceiling.
“When we’re both on it shows,’’ LaVine said. “We’re able to take over games. But we just need to do a little bit more and figure out how to get that to a little more winning. I think that’s the thing that we were both a little bit frustrated about, how we can both play off each other better.’’